Edited: I should have remained skeptical. The Fakebook thread was false, and I also relied on a friend who was likewise fooled by it. The report of the bridge collapse is false.

I’d gotten a report on social media last night, but I didn’t believe it. However, the HC Sherrif’s office confirmed it today; the Woodforest bridge west of Normandy has collapsed. I’ve appended more to the prior message, but I wanted to make an extra post to show this:

Hard right turn? Water can't do that.

From the map and the pictures I posted, you can see that Greens Bayou takes a hard westerly turn, not once, but twice in a short span. The second time is just south of the bridge (I was facing south when taking the pictures). Millions of tons of water can NOT just change course and avoid the neighborhood. It piles up and tries to go over, following the blue arrows into my neighborhood and into the small bayou (which I now know is named Jordan’s Gully). Eventually it rejoins the main channel just East of Normandy, near where I took this picture, back when I could get off my street.

Well, that bridge isn’t there anymore. My brother said he felt it moving when we stopped to take pictures, but I thought he mean vibration from the truck that passed us (also taking pictures). It was a big rig’s cab (only), and it’s normal for bridges to flex a bit under load. I didn’t notice anything, but I’m still having very minor issues with dizziness, so maybe I was too “off” to notice.

In other news, the San Jacinto has overtopped I-10, the Addicks reservoir has overtopped the spillway (NEVER happened before, and it dates to the 1930’s or 40’s, and we have only light rain here. Baytown and Galveston are getting hammered, and it’s moving east.

UPDATE: Here’s a thread on the bridge collapse. It has a google maps pic of it from above; here’s the street view (don’t know when it was taken), and the last photo I took again.

Google View. It's actually up a bit in this picture.

Morning, 8/27. By the evening, water would have been almost overtopping the bridge.

During the height of Allison’s flooding, I could walk down to the end of the street and see a foot-wide, three-inch deep stream of water that had meandered through the neighborhood to flow into the storm drain that took it into that little bayou. From there, I could walk to the Kroger’s, and see their single line of sandbags keeping the water from their flooded parking lot out of the building.

Don’t think I’m doing that this time.

On the bright side, I estimate it will take another two to three feet before we’re in danger of flooding, and the upper Greens Bayou is slowly dropping.

That’s not quite true; I can probably reach I-10, but with 340+ major highway closures (which doesn’t count other streets; assume thousands), I’m not going anywhere. I couldn’t even reach Greens Bayou on the morning scout. I’ll have what pictures I could get, shortly. Times like this, I wish I had a drone….

Edit: forgot to mention, Barker and Addicks floodgates are open, and Lake Conroe’s gates have been opened also.